“You can trust me,” she said softly, more for herself than for him.
Because trust was a fragile thing, and this man—whoever he was—had every reason not to give it freely.
“I… don?—”
Daisy pressed a steady hand to his chest, barely needing any strength to keep him down.
“Please. Just rest for now,” she said firmly.
Slowly, she lifted the half-full cup of willow bark tea she’d used throughout the night, giving him a silent invitation.
But he hesitated, wary and guarded.
“I won’t hurt you,” she reassured again.
For a long, tense moment, he didn’t move. Then, at last, his eyes flickered shut and he sipped, swallowing with effort.
Daisy let out a slow breath.
But that look of terror in his eyes lingered in her mind, squeezing her chest, breaking her heart more than a little.
“Is there someone I can send for?” she asked gently. He was awake now, but she couldn’t assume he was out of the woods. His injuries had been left untended for days. Fever would no doubt set in, and then, there would be little she could do but comfort him and hope. “I’m not a physician. Is there someone who might come and help you?”
He opened his eyes again, blinking as though struggling to process the question, and then?—
The door creaked open.
He flinched violently, his fingers clawing weakly at the bedding, as if bracing for a blow.
Daisy’s head snapped up even as she covered his hands with one of hers.
“It’s just my brother,” she said quickly.
Gilbert stood in the doorway, freshly dressed, his face scrubbed clean and his curls neatly combed.
“He didn’t die, then?” His voice broke the quiet like a crack of thunder.
The eagerness in his expression made Daisy blink back to reality, the weight of everything else that needed doing crashing down around her.
Breakfast needed making—Gilbert needed to eat, to be alert, ready for school.
Soaps needed packaging.
Deliveries had to go out.
The garden required tending.
And all of it had to be done on no sleep. She sighed, exhaustion dragging at her limbs.
But even in her weariness, she was grateful. Because life—hard and relentless as it was—still meant survival.
Other families who had been ordered to leave the priory by Lord Calvin hadn’t been so lucky. Some had found work on new estates, scraping by with just enough. But for every one of them, another had been swallowed by the workhouses—or worse, by the streets, by debtors’ prisons, by death.
Her father’s oldest friend had taken his own life.
A farmer without a farm had little to live for.
Daisy exhaled, pressing her fingers to her temples, forcing the thoughts away. Her aunt had taught her well. To stay alive, and hopefully one day thrive, one needed to keep moving.
